In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Friday, March 2, 2018

12920 - View: Sorry Mr Modi, yours is a good but incomplete report card - Economic Times


By Swaminathan A Aiyar

Modi declared his ‘Make in India’ programme was a success, even as job creation is nowhere near the promised 100 million 

At the Economic Times Global Business Summit last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a detailed report card on India’s economic performance, and declared “India is open for business”. He reeled off a horde of impressive economic statistics. However, the list was so long and detailed that it became a bit boring, a surprising outcome for a normally lively speaker. Possibly this statistical avalanche helped gloss over some key weaknesses in his ‘New India’. 

He recalled that when he came to power in 2014, global markets listed India among the ‘Fragile Five’. Today, he declared, the same markets saw India as a potential $5-trillion economy. India’s macros have certainly improved greatly, and global confidence in India is much higher than in 2014. Moody’s has upgraded India’s credit rating. Yet, actual nominal GDP right now is only $2.5 trillion, barely half of Modi’s new benchmark. 

He noted that after coming to power, he had cut the fiscal and current account deficits and slashed inflation. Very true. But consumer inflation, once down to 2%, is rising again and has crossed 5%. Interest rates are rising globally and in the Indian bond market, putting upward pressure on prices. 

Worse, the Budget has promised farmers that the minimum support price (MSP) for all crops will henceforth be at least 50% above the cost of purchased inputs and imputed family labour. Former chairman of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) Ashok Gulati has shown that last kharif season, MSPs represented a profit margin of only 39% for paddy, 9% for hybrid jowar, 37% for maize, 32% for cotton and 41% for groundnuts. 

Since then, input prices have risen a lot, especially for diesel and fertilisers. If, in addition, the profit is raised to 50%, kharif crop prices will rise sharply. Indian inflation is sensitive to food prices. So, the inflation outlook is worrying in the politically sensitive run-up to the 2019 general election. 

Recounting Achievements 
Modi said as many as 400 welfare programmes now reached beneficiaries through direct benefit transfers to their bank accounts. This impressive achievement cuts delivery costs and corruption, and eliminates ghost card holders. He praised the trinity of JAM (Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and mobile phones) for revolutionising GoI’s ability to reach beneficiaries quickly, without corruption or diversion. 

Today, India had 330 million Jan Dhan accounts holding Rs 75,000 crore of deposits. The Mudra scheme for loans without guarantees to small and micro industries had, Modi claimed, reached 40 million beneficiaries. Farmers had 110 million soil health cards to guide them on what fertilisers would best suit their holdings. Caveat: Aadhaar has technical flaws and can affect the privacy of individuals, and the Supreme Court is hearing pleas to scrap the use of Aadhaar for breaching the fundamental right to privacy. Probably the court will approve Aadhaar subject to safeguards. 

Modi said the new National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) will cover 500 million people, without admitting that the proposed cost of Rs 12,000 crore was just 0.075% of GDP. He boasted of bringing 800 medicines under price control, and reducing the price of heart stents by 80%. He claimed welfare schemes would soon ensure housing, clean cooking gas, healthcare, electricity and life insurance for all. 

He highlighted India’s improved ranking in the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ index, the boom of stock markets and startups, and India’s becoming the fastest growing major economy in the world. Today, virtually no global company could afford not to be in India. He said in the last four years, $209 billion of FDI had flowed into India, far higher than under Congress rule. 

Modi declared his ‘Make in India’ programme was a success, even as job creation is nowhere near the promised 100 million. He said the number of mobile phone manufacturers had risen from three to 120—without explaining why, in that case, he had raised import duties on phones and components. He was silent on weakness in banks exposed cruelly by Nirav Modi. Nor did he mention the RBI tightening of norms for recognising and providing for doubtful loans, something that plunged SBI and Bank of Baroda into record losses last quarter. 

Bank recapitalisaton now looks grossly inadequate, and the twin balance sheet problem is far from over. Domestic bond interest rates have shot up. Not even the flood of foreign money has sufficed to finance both the fiscal deficit and growth needs of business. 

Free Trade? 
Modi failed to repeat his much praised talk of free trade and globalisation at Davos. This—to the dismay of analysts—had been followed by a protectionist Budget raising duties on 40 manufactures. Modi insisted India is “open for business”. This clearly means India is open for foreign investment rather than imports. The populist job pressures squeezing Donald Trump in the US are squeezing Modi too. The prime minister’s report card giving high marks to India was mainly correct. But it failed to list several problems and unremedied flaws. This qualified but did not quite invalidate his report card. 

*Views expressed above are the author's own. 

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